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Health System Launches New Hospitalist Program

September 28, 2009

BRUNSWICK, Georgia: Aug. 20, 2009 – Southeast Georgia Health System
launched a new hospitalist program on Aug. 4 at its Brunswick Campus.
The Health System has contracted with PrimeDoc Management Services, Inc.,
a physician owned company that specializes in the establishment, staffing,
and management of turnkey hospitalist programs to establish the service.

“Having this service means that patients have access to the care
of on-site internal medicine doctors who focus exclusively on them while
they are in the hospital, from the time they are admitted until the time
they are discharged,” says Gary R. Colberg, FACHE, president &
CEO of the Health System. “Since they do not maintain a private
practice, these physicians, called ‘hospitalists,’ are on-site
24 hours a day, seven days a week, to care for whatever medical needs
patients have during their stay. This means patients no longer have to
wait for their primary care physician to check on them either before going
to his or her office in the morning or in the evening after the doctor’s
office closes.”

Currently, the program will cover patients admitted through the Brunswick
Campus Emergency Care Center who do not have primary care physicians.
This care is being provided by Clinical Director Misty Leigh Williams,
MD, and Thomas Craig, MD. Williams is board certified in internal medicine
and pediatrics and is a graduate of the University of Arkansas Medical
School (UAMS). She is a former clinical instructor in the Department of
Pediatrics for UAMS and for the past three years practiced as a PrimeDoc
hospitalist in Frederick, Maryland. Craig is board certified in internal
medicine. He earned his medical degree at Meharry Medical College in Nashville,
Tennessee, and completed his residency in internal medicine at Cook County
Hospital in Chicago.

Over the next few months, PrimeDoc will be expanding to include round-the-clock
care of unassigned patients (patients without a primary care physician),
medical consultations, and coverage of patients of staff physicians who
request hospitalist services.

“We are delighted to add Southeast Georgia Health System to the growing
list of health systems we serve,” says Robert J. Reynolds, MD, the
company’s president and CEO, who is an internal medicine specialist
with 18 years of clinical practice experience. “We are selective
about the hospitals we partner with and to be chosen from among larger,
national companies for this contract means the leaders of the Health System
value a personal level of service that PrimeDoc offers its clients.”

PrimeDoc, founded in 1997 and based in Asheville, N.C., serves hospitals
throughout the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. The contract with the Health
System represents PrimeDoc’s third in the state of Georgia. Colberg
says the Health System decided to implement a hospitalist program to enhance
the quality of care patients experience in the hospital. “Our purpose
is to provide specialists in inpatient care for our patients. We chose
PrimeDoc because they are pioneers in the hospitalist movement. We look
forward to partnering with them and believe it is a step forward for those
in our community who require hospitalization at our Brunswick Campus.”

For more information about PrimeDoc, visit www.primedoc.net. To learn more
about Southeast Georgia Health System, visit www.sghs.com.